Bad hair days for San Francisco nonprofit

A San Francisco-based nonprofit that wanted to give BP a hand cleaning up their ever-growing oily mess is now up to its forehead in hair — 450,000 pounds of human and animal follicles to be exact.

When word got out that Matter of Trust was collecting strands to soak up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the group was inundated with hair — both human and animal — from around the world and with offers of help. Volunteers stuffed the strands into nylons to create booms, while corporations like Hanes, Petco and UPS donated their time and resources to the cause. But over the weekend, BP and the Coast Guard said they would not be using hair booms because the artificial ones worked better. At least one expert agrees that hair isn’t the best option for cleaning up spills.

The BP-Coast Guard announcement left Matter of Trust president Lisa Gautier confused. She claims:

“One department at BP told us to open the floodgates and send all the hair we could find. But on Friday another department in the same building told us they couldn’t use the hair.”